In His Own Words: Andy Brizio

Long before becoming the Rodfather, an unknown Northern California rodder became a young father, five times over. Now 81, Andy Brizio describes struggling through the late ’50s and early ’60s to feed that family: “I was a milkman for years, I was a garbage man for years, I loaded trucks. I was the starter at two dragstrips. I worked three jobs at one time. I wasn’t even sleeping anymore. The kids still laugh about it. I used to pull up to a stoplight and say, ‘Tell me when it’s green.’ I’d close my eyes, y’know?” He pauses to replay the memory, then adds, “Now they’re doing it to me again: ‘Hey, Dad, it’s green!’”

1/30“Oh, Sue and I wanted that trophy so bad! This was the last time that ‘Baggy’ Bagdasarian let the two big winners take it home, six months each. That year 1970, Mike Mitchell won America’s Most Beautiful Competition Car with his Corvette roadster. Sue and I took the trophy first, then Mitchell practically destroyed it. It had to be rebuilt. They never let anyone have it after that.”

Half a century later, Dad is the patriarch of hot rodding’s first family. Sue Brizio, who contributed Child Number Six after marrying Andy in 1963, is responsible for separating his brainstorms from the brain farts, then executing big ideas ranging from Andy’s Picnics and Andy’s Wheels & Tires to Andy’s Instant T factory and Andy’s Tees, the apparel company—now run by their daughters—that’s printed every Goodguys T-shirt in your closet, among thousands of designs for clients worldwide. You might’ve heard of Andy’s only son, who took over his south San Francisco street-rod shop at the tender age of 21. “We knew he’d be fine,” Sue recalls, “after people started talking about ‘Roy Brizio’s dad,’ instead of ‘Andy Brizio’s son.’”

2/30“My first car, in 1949: a ’41 Plymouth, turquoise upholstery, ’50 Plymouth bumpers, stock motor. It was ugly, but it was a car! I was 17.”

12/30“The Organ Grinders wasn’t exactly a club; just a bunch of guys who hung around Champion Speed Shop and helped run Ted Gotelli’s fueler, the world’s fastest Chevy. That’s me behind the trophy girl, Tammy Thomas. My arms are around Jim McLennan, a great driver, and Bruno Gianoli, a great mechanic. To my left is Ted Gotelli, then Cub Barnett. Bruno and Cub still build race motors. See how all the shirts are embroidered with the same name? We got that from a donkey named Sam, our mascot. We’d feed Sam cigars to make him fart; nasty, smelly farts! This had to be before 1962, when Ted opened up his own place, taking Bruno with him, and started racing against Jim and Champion. It got ugly—real bad blood. I didn’t know who I could hang out with.”

Business successes do not a Rodfather make, however. Starting in 1957, drag racers came to know him as the regular starter at the Half Moon Bay and Cotati strips operated by his late friend, Jim McLennan. Andy and another lifelong pal, Cub Barnett, succeeded Jim as owners of the legendary Champion Speed Shop. Andy turned Dragmaster Co.’s slow-selling T-bucket kit into the red-hot Instant T, ultimately making “instant” street rodders out of hundreds of enthusiasts from 1966 to 1980. His personal roadster, the second car constructed from Dragmaster’s parts, evolved into America’s Most Beautiful Roadster in 1970. “Once you bought the $595 chassis, you could find the rest in our catalog,” he explains. “That was my gimmick: Get the chassis, then anything else you wanted, you’d have to buy from me, because I made the parts that bolted on—except the cowl lights that we used as turn signals in those days. When Sue would go back to Iowa to visit relatives every summer, she’d find old lanterns that we could resell.”

13/30“Li’l’ John and I were close. While Terry Cook was HOT ROD’s editor, he cooked up a north-vs.-south competition between us to see who’d build the better street rod, from scratch, to drive to the next NSRA Nationals: Buttera’s Model A sedan or my version of a “Street Roadster of the Future” concept from the magazine Mar. ’72. This shot is similar to the photo of us that led off a four-part series “The Great California Street Rod Civil War”; Jan., Feb., May, June ’74 HRM. We finished first, and my yellow car made the cover, but I had to truck it to L.A. for the photo shoot. We never did get that roadster running right with the dual Mazda rotaries, a real nightmare. I replaced them right away with a small-block Chevy. That car turned up at our Sutter Creek picnic two years ago, looking pretty much the same.”

14/30“Buttera brought me back to Indy three times to be on his crew. This was the first one, 1982. Dennis Firestone qualified, but we lost a flywheel on the 32nd lap. I recognize Ronnie Capps left, Leigh and John Buttera, Glen Sanders right, and myself, in between Li’l’ John and Dennis Varni. I don’t remember who stuck that HOT ROD sticker on the nose.”

24/30Sue Brizio: “When we went down to L.A. for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Deuce, we knew only that the Petersen Museum would provide entertainment. Had they advertised that Jimmie Vaughan left, Billy Gibbons center, Michael Anthony, and Jeff Beck would be playing together, they would’ve needed the L.A. Coliseum!”

25/30

26/30“It took three tries to win America’s Most Beautiful Roadster. You always think your car is the nicest, but we really didn’t deserve it in ’68, when it was purple, or in ’69, repainted red with Tommy the Greek’s black pinstriping. Art Himsl had already done a customer’s Instant T with ribbons and wild colors. I hated it, but everybody else seemed to like it, so I asked Art to redo mine ‘psychedelic,’ too, for the ’70 Oakland show. Painting each side differently was his idea. Art has never charged me a dime for work, in all these years. I do give him T-shirts, though. We always get stuck with some mediums at the end of a year. I bring him about 20, and I’m good for another year. Mike Mitchell’s flip-top gasser, voted American’s Most Beautiful Competition Car, is in the background. I drove the T to the first NSRA Nationals in Peoria that year to prove, again, that you could drive these cars.”

Mostly, the Rodfather will be remembered for the example set by simply driving hot rods—everywhere. For 44 successive years, he took individual round trips of thousands of miles, starting with 1969’s Volksrod run to Gatlinburg that passenger Bud Bryan covered in Rod & Custom. The next summer, Andy blew minds by driving to Peoria’s inaugural Street Rod Nationals in the current AMBR winner, disproving the “experts” who’d always insisted that Roots-blown engines wouldn’t survive long distances. “Everybody said we’d have to change the oil every few hundred miles,” he recalls, “so we did—the first day, one time. After that, I said, ‘Screw it!’ We had no problems, there or back. I just don’t understand people. They’re so afraid they’re gonna break down. I know of nice cars around here that never leave Amador County! If everything is right, all-new parts and stuff, you can go down the road and never have a problem in one.” Take it from a guy who’s rolled up 232,000 miles in his, and counting.

27/30“Ed Roth was a good guy, real nice to my family. He sent this letter with his Christmas card in 1996.”

28/30“I haven’t kept a lot of stuff. I gave most of it away for some reason. Here’s the signboard we made for the ’70 Oakland show.”

29/30“Sue’s waving from the car that Roy secretly built for me with parts donated by our friends. It’s gone 232,000 miles since they surprised me in ’87. After we sold our hot rods to get the T-shirt deal going, Jack Williams called up Roy and said, ‘Your dad needs a car, and it’s about time he called in all the favors for things he’s helped other people do. I’ll buy a Wescott body to start it off and call around.’ Jack could be very persuasive. Everybody tells me that this is one car I can never sell, because I didn’t pay for it.”

Entering his ninth decade, Andy Brizio isn’t slowing down, either figuratively or literally. As we observed firsthand throughout 2012’s Rodfather Road Tour, Andy is often the last guy standing in a hotel bar, leaning on his cane, yet among the first to fire up at daybreak. As we puttered along at 75 mph in the slow lane, our Model A was repeatedly passed by a flamed purple Deuce racing, rain or shine, to the next adventure of a life lived at wide-open throttle.

30/30“After our six months were up with the big AMBR trophy, ‘Baggy’ Bagdasarian surprised me with one that Sue and I could keep. As far as I know, it’s the only time a promoter ever did that.”